I actually have a dangerous friend
…and I don’t know why I keep him.
Well, let’s be honest here for a second. My friend is a full-blown narcissist, hyperactive, literally free of remorse for his current actions, no respect for other peoples property and basically not interested in a conversation that is more than his monologue.
He’s someone who talks and talks and talks when he has a problem, asking for advice, but interrupts you while you are giving it. And on the other hand, when you got a trouble he literally doesn’t give a fuck. He doesn’t say it, of course, but he doesn’t listen, literally obviously.
He calls you for help, when he’s in need, like if he’s moving, or doesn’t have anyone else to call (because most people just wouldn’t care), when he needs your car and stuff and even though I didn’t really came into the predicament that I actually needed someone, the few times where support would have been nice, well, it wasn’t there.
He lies as well, his stories change to his benefit. There was this one time, were he displayed himself being in some sort of mentor position for me. He bragged that he taught me, somehow claiming my development and achieving for himself, while he didn’t actually taught me a thing, had no role in me succeeding at work. I let him know, but in this moment I didn’t give it away to the people he was talking to, I just wanted to let him know. Even though I’m not sure he will remember, at that moment he realised that I protested and he moved on to another topic rather quickly.
And there’s more: there’s a dark side to him as well. There’s this moment, when he gets drunk, where he gets so shitfaced that he literally becomes a different person. I honestly think this is when his true self comes to light, the part of himself he’s hiding all of the time, the part of himself he would be if he could be, the part he buries for whatever reasons there are. Aggressive, incalculable.
I pride myself with the ability to have a calming effect on even the worst people. People with a history of violence told me that I’m the only one able to calm them down, even when they’re gone completely. People who get into fights every weekend don’t when I’m around. Somehow I’m able to reach them, no matter how far gone they are.
Not him! He’s the only person I know that I can’t reach. The only person I got actually scared of in a situation where I realised that I can’t talk him down, off a trip he was having being his drunk persona. A person I think I know I could actually do nothing to protect myself against, if he looses it and decides he’d want to hurt me.
I don’t know why I still keep him around. I tell myself, that I know where the borders of our friendship are, what “services” I can expect of him, and which not. I tell myself that I like him, well… I actually do. And honestly, I fear that I actually do know why.
When we met I saw him, being driven, and I told him the first day that I think we will get along with each other. He confided in me months later that he thought I was nuts and who I think I am to say shit like that.
He has told me that he appreciates my friendship. And somehow I believe him. I think in the ways he’s capable of, he actually considers me a friend, whenever I appear in his viscinity. For a moment his self-centered-ness actually appreciates me. I believe him when he says that he knows he can count on me, because he can. And I tell me that to some degree he sees my different-ness, he can see that somehow I’m as different to the rest as he is in his own ways.
Maybe that’s why I like him as well. Because somehow I recognise the darkness within him. I recognise it because I faced it as well, although I managed to come to terms with it differently.
I don’t think I can change him (and I don’t want to) and I know, that I have to be extremely careful, really careful. You can’t imagine how careful I think I have to be with him to prevent myself from being damaged one way or another. But somehow I think there’s something that I can learn from him as well as he could learn something from me.
Somehow I know that this friendship won’t last for ages, but somehow I know as well, that something valuable will come out of it. Or at least I hope so. Otherwise I’m in trouble.
